A Boy Must Learn, Part One

While we were at PAX East, a time which is at once incomprehensibly ancient and yet concurrent with the now, we suggested to attendees that we would set ourselves to the task of creating more Lookouts. It wasn’t pure fiction, because I wanted it to be true. Does that count?

Politicians are universally reviled, because they are craven unbeings whose every word is a lie. I have some sympathy for them though, however misplaced, because I have on occasion been thrust into a bright light with a microphone in my hand, and made to field questions from a mass of beings I cannot truly see. I would have consented to any demand under those harrowing conditions, and maybe this is something you can take advantage of at the next PAX. The desire of a person in that scenario to please is so great it overrides the survival instinct. So maybe don’t take advantage of it.

Gabriel is gone these next two weeks attending to a new son - a duration which seemed auspicious, and could potentially make my hasty promises something akin to truth. On a walk with my own heir three weeks ago, the Lookouts story you are about to read told itself to me, and I related it to Gabriel even before I had returned home. He set to work immediately, and the first of six pages is now available here.

I’m certain that Gabriel would like to thank Steve Hamaker for this amazing colors on the project, and EricaGreco for the lettering. We’ve finally figured it out - how to manage our time appropriately around these things, how to delegate other things and who to delegate them to - but we figured it out on the last kid. That’s how these things go, I guess.

The onslaught of Halo media in advance of the beta is well and truly on, and it’s begun to get increasingly granular, Joystiq, which is about the time I check out mentally. But ever since the beta trailer I’ve been intrigued by Headhunter, a collection and deposit gametype. Kills result in the creation of a skull object, and more than one can be collected - i.e., they’re not Oddballs - but they’re only scored when they’re brought to a shifting collection zone. It was difficult to tell in the debut if a headshot was required to create the skull, but it looks like it’s any kill, which means that it’s not a new gametype at all - it’s Hunters, from Tribes 2 (and others). When you amass unscored kills and then die yourself, sending potential points everywhere, this used to be known as a Yard Sale - and I’m suggesting we keep this nomenclature.

That’s right, the entire paragraph above is dedicated to retaining a piece of fucking medieval lore. I take my role as game community shaman very seriously.